Biography of Archibald L. Scott

Archibald L. Scott, a notable figure in Montgomery County, Kansas, made significant contributions in agriculture, politics, and military service. Born in West Virginia in 1841, he settled in Montgomery County in 1884, amassing a 902-acre estate. Scott served in the 4th Ohio Infantry during the Civil War, participating in key battles and sustaining injuries. Transitioning to oil drilling, he worked in Pennsylvania and returned to Kansas in 1883. A Republican-turned-Populist, Scott served in the Kansas Legislature in 1890, focusing on tax reform and maintaining active community and Masonic involvement.

ARCHIBALD L. SCOTT—Among those settlers of Montgomery county who have emphasized their presence in the world of achievement in the field of agriculture prominently appears the name of Archibald L. Scott, of Sycamore township, farmer, soldier and honored citizen. To win a pronounced victory in the domain of agriculture, to accumulate and improve a vast body of land, princely in dominion, in less than two decades and to establish a wide civil and political confidence, ranking one as a leading citizen of his municipality, mentions, in brief, the events in the career of our subject and serves to indicate the real character of his citizenship.

March 10th, 1884, he became a citizen of Montgomery county, and settled on section 10, township 31, range 15. Then his identity with Kansas farming began and the history of his efforts in this and kindred vocations finds its strongest utterance in the possession of an estate of nine hundred and two acres of land.

The native place of Mr. Scott is Tyler county, West Virginia. He was born near Sistersville, October 6, 1841, was a son of George Scott, and grew up on his father’s farm. The latter was born in County Donnegal, Ireland, in 1811, came to the United States in 1816 with his father, Archibald Scott. The grandfather had a family of sons, John and George, both of whom died in Hancock county, Illinois, the former in 1882—leaving a family—and the latter in 1898. George Scott was an active, positive citizen of his community, took an interest in its various affairs, was first a Whig, then a Democrat and finally a Republican. He married Easter West, who died in 1846, being the mother of the following children: Wesley S., of Pleasance county, W. Va.; William, deceased; Archibald L., of this review; Margaret A., who married Wm. C. Sine, of Toronto, Ohio; Amos C., of Carthage, Illinois. Rachel Williams became the second wife of George Scott, and her children were: George N., of Hamilton, Illinois; Charles A., of Brady’s Bend, Pa.; Ellen, deceased, and David O.

The education of Archibald L. Scott was limited in quantity. The log school house was both his preparatory school and university, and his service in school seemed to be of less importance than his services on the farm. The serious responsibilities of life began with him before he was twenty years of age, and in 1860, he crossed over into Marriusburg, Ohio, where he was employed for a time in a tannery. June 5th, 1861, he enlisted in Company “B,” 4th Ohio Inf., Col. Loren Andrews, of Gambier College. His service began in West Virginia, at Clarksburg, and he participated in the fight at Rich Mountain. He was enlisted for three months, but the regiment was reorganized in Camp Denison for three years, it being one of the first Ohio regiments so to do. From the Rich Mountain battlefield the command followed the Baltimore & Ohio Ry. to Fort Pendleton and took Rumney, was engaged at Patterson’s Creek, Martinsburg, Winchester and finally fought Stonewall Jackson at Kerntown, giving that Confederate chieftain his first and only defeat on a fair field. The next move of the command was toward Fredericksburg, and then to the Shenandoah Valley by way of Manassas Junction and Front Royal. An advance was made to cut off Jackson at Port Republic, thence back to Front Royal, to Alexandria and to Harrison’s Landing, where a junction with the Army of the Potomac was effected. The main battles fought while with the Army of the Potomac were the closing days of the Seven Days’ Fight, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. At this juncture Mr. Scott’s time expired and he was ordered to Columbus, Ohio, to be mustered out of service. He enlisted as a private, declined a sergeancy, was color bearer in two engagements and was wounded three times in the battle of Chancellorsville, in the hand, thigh and by a piece of iron under the left ear. The ball taken from his left thigh is in his possession, a relic of the great citizen war.

Mr. Scott changed his uniform for a workingman’s garb and became an oil well driller, with a spring-pole for power, in the West Virginia field. Leaving there he went into the Pennsylvania field and was connected with oil production in the two states for nineteen years. In the meantime he came to Kansas—in 1870—and was located for a time in Neodesha, where he did carpenter work and served the village as its marshal, the first one it had. While there—June 10th, 1872—he married and soon after returned to the Pennsylvania oil fields, where he continued an operator till his final advent to the Sunflower State, in 1883.

Mrs. Scott was Clara McWilliams, a daughter of Wallace and Mary McWilliams, pioneers to Kansas from Knox county, Ohio, settling at Geneva, in Allen county, in August, 1860. The parents afterward moved to Neodesha, where they died, leaving children: Rena, deceased wife of Abraham Ross; David, deceased; William B., of Caney, Kansas; Burnie, deceased, married E. N. Lewis; Moses and Charles, deceased; Mrs. Scott; John, of Coffeyville, Kansas, and Eugene, of Neodesha, Kansas.

Mr. and Mrs. Scott’s children are Howard A., deputy county attorney of Montgomery county, Kansas, who was commissioned First Lieutenant of Co. “G,” 20th Kansas—Filipino insurrection—and was promoted to captain of Co. “A,” but mustered out as captain of Co. “G,” having been assigned back to his first company; George W., married Mabel Lane, resides in Montgomery county, and has one child, Edna Cleo; Archibald L., Edwin P., Walter W., and Henry J. Scott conclude the list.

As a citizen Mr. Scott has wielded a political influence in Montgomery county. He was a Republican when he became a voter and acted with that party till the confusing and discordant elements of the political atmosphere began to vibrate in 1890, and for the next eight years assumed positive shape and shook the very foundation stones of the dominant parties, finally absorbing one and unifying the whole into a mass of “unterrified.” To this new political force Mr. Scott gave his allegiance and by it he was nominated, in 1890, Representative to the Legislature. He served the winter of 1890–1 in the House and was chairman of the committee on assessment and taxation. He was a member of the library and other committees, but gave more attention to the reform of our tax laws and succeeded in getting a bill through the House covering the subject, but the Senate sounded its death knell by inaction. He served with Elder and other once noted and prominent Populists, and while he was for Judge Doster for United States Senator, he voted for Wm. A. Peffer. Mr. Scott has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1868, when he joined the order at Spencer, West Virginia, Siloam lodge. He holds his membership in Harmony lodge, Neodesha.